Tag Archives: Complaint Maker

This month’s complaint (or so it seems to plod along at the moment) comes from Wendi Aarons from Austin, Texas and regards probably the most unloved of all products on the supermarket shelf – the maxi pad.

I’ve always thought that an all female staff is crucial for the effective marketing of feminine hygiene products and Wendi’s open letter is direct proof of this.

There are so many awful things I can say about pads and tampons – beyond my father’s need to call them “mop ’em up’s and plug ’em ups” (I’m sorry I had to write that), the marketing is probably the worst facet of this industry.

As Wendi alludes, the last thing any woman wants to do when she has her period is things like yoga, rock climbing or rhythmic gymnastics – yet the advertising seems to want to push us out of our foetal positions of horrendous pain and into the olympic swimming pool with something that looks like a massive parasitic sea creature living inside of us.

Everyone hates airline food. Everyone. My dad hates it so much that Qantas have him on a ‘frequent complainer’ list – so they know where to send the vouchers whenever he sends in his rambling.

I’ve never had a satisfying thing to eat on a plane. I just don’t understand why it’s so difficult – it’s the same premise as a lean cuisine really, why the hell can’t they just get it right?

Also, why do they always choose food that looks like vomit? When you feel like doing it – eating it isn’t going to help.

A Styrofoam tray of powdered mash with watery brown ‘gravy’, petrified and reheated ‘fish’ with yellowy green mucus like sauce dribbles is not what you want jumping around on your lap in a dipping hunk of metal at 23000 feet.

It’s just not right.

Beyond the food, a flight is never a wonderful experience – that is unless you can fork out the price of a used car for what is basically hiring a reclining chair for 20 odd hours.

I’m ALWAYS seated right where some kind of roof appendage is in front of the television screen – or – if I’m supposed to have a personal one, it’s usually broken.

So today’s complaint is about just that – the flight. It’s from a year ago and I hope you haven’t seen it, because it’s hilarious.

This complainant went straight to the top when he got a pile of crap for dinner on a long Virgin flight, and it was so florid and well crafted that he got a personal response from Mr Branson himself… A masterpiece to be found after the cut:

Pen Wars is a friend to complaint makers, takers and finders alike and nowhere else will complaints in any entertaining form find their home.

This is why I couldn’t refuse Paul from Sydney, NSW when he sent me a series of entries via our submit page

An Unreasonable Thing To Expect Ever Happening

Neighbours are tricky. I’ve never had a neighbour I’ve gotten on with and I think it’s the Murphy’s Law of living anywhere there’s someone else close by. In fact I’ve had a number of neighbours that have made my life a living hell – but less about me.

It seems Paul has been holding these complaints about his neighbour for many years and thus I’m happy to show them here.